This invention relates to the plumbing trades, and in particular to an improved spacer for extending the opening of a soil pipe flange to floor level while maintaining a positive seal against leakage.
In residential and commercial construction, the soil pipe is the conduit for directing wastes from a sink or toilet into the sewer below. The soil pipe conventionally terminates in a ring-shaped flange having spaced openings for receiving bolts or the like which are used to secure the flange to the toilet fixture above.
When a soil pipe is first installed, the floor above has usually been roughed in by the carpentry or concrete trades, but has not been finished. After the finished floor has been installed on top of the rough floor, the final level of the toilet fixture is typically somewhat higher than the soil pipe flange, requiring some kind of spacer or extension to bring the flange into sealing relationship.
A similar problem is encountered in older buildings, where a soil pipe (also called a soil stack) may have settled relative to the original floor, or where a new floor has been installed on top of the old one, requiring additional spacing to securely connect the fixture to the soil pipe flange.
In the prior art, wax rings and other deformable spacers have long been used in the trade, sometimes with inadequate results. Wax is capable of conforming to the mating surfaces of the parts to be joined, but is awkward to use and has only limited resilience and very little strength.
Also in the prior art, simple extension flanges have been employed, as exemplified by the Prodyma U.S. Pat. No. 4,384,910 (May 24, 1983) but such devices must also utilize conventional wax rings and flexible adhesives (mastic) for maximum effectiveness. They must also be provided in numerous sizes to accommodate the many different soil pipe spacing problems which may be encountered by the plumber.
It is therefore a principal object of the invention to provide an improved spacer for connecting a soil pipe with a fixture in which a positive seal is achieved without the use of wax rings or mastic adhesives.
It is a further object of the invention to provide an improved spacer which may be supplied in predetermined thicknesses to allow stacking in various combinations to accurately match widely varying requirements of soil pipe extension with just a few basic spacer elements.